Rachel Linteigan (2:42)

Thanks so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today.

Amy Porterfield (2:45)

I am, too. Because this is a topic I really need to understand, and you are the expert. So we're going to get into it. So most people listening, they know they should be doing something with SEO. But if we're being really honest, most of my students don't really know a lot about SEO. I am definitely not well versed in it, and it kind of keeps falling to the bottom of their list. So before we get into what's changed with SEO, because SEO in an AI world, it's a different world. But before we even get into what's changed, why is SEO worth paying attention to? I guess, especially right now, so we can get into that as well. But what does it actually do for an online business?

Rachel Linteigan (3:27)

Amy, that is such a great question. And you're right. Most people don't really understand how much it can do for you. So I learned SEO in the corporate world. I come from corporate and I come from ad agencies. So we use it to really build the entire visibility of your business online. We use SEO as our core foundation of our strategy to determine everything that we do online. Every piece of content we create, every keyword, we go after everything. Because what it amounts to is it's how you get found online by people who are searching for information either directly from your business or related to your business, no matter where they are searching. And that's where AI comes in. Because it used to be just about Google. We only worried about showing up on Google Today. People are searching Google, but they're also searching chat, GPT and Claude, and they're looking at the AI overviews and they're searching for podcasts. So we need to show up everywhere if we want our businesses to be able to be found easily. It's kind of like the digital Yellow Pages. If you remember, like, back in the day, everybody had the Yellow Pages. It's kind of like that. It's like getting the big ad in the Yellow Pages, but without paying for it. That's pretty much what SEO does.

Amy Porterfield (4:52)

Okay, there's Rachel. This is really sad. There's going to be some people listening right now. They're like, what are yellow Pages? But we're just moving on from that because that makes me feel too old. So we're moving on. Oh, geez. Okay, so this is great to know. So you've been saying that the rules have shifted and most people don't know it yet. So what is happening right now in the world of SEO, especially of course, because of AI.

Rachel Linteigan (5:19)

So there's really two big things that are happening right now, Amy. The first we just touched on slightly, and that's AI based search. No matter what you want to call it, I'm sure you've heard Geo aeo like we're an acronym happy industry. That doesn't matter. What matters is people are very quickly finding they prefer the AI based or answer search. So they're going over there more and more and more often. What we're actually seeing now because, because of that is a decrease in traditional search traffic, like from Google. Now, this doesn't mean Google doesn't matter anymore. We still need to do both. But what we're seeing is while we may get less traffic from Google, it's often people that are closer to the point of conversion. So they're more likely to buy from you.

Amy Porterfield (6:07)

Oh, okay. They're. They're more likely to buy if they're going right to Google.

Rachel Linteigan (6:12)

Well, what we're seeing a lot is a handoff between AI and Google. At least 49% of the searchers who start on AI go to Google when they're ready to make a purchase.

Amy Porterfield (6:25)

Interesting.

Rachel Linteigan (6:26)

Can I give you a real quick example from a student because this makes it easier to understand. So I have a student who's a life coach. She coaches people who struggle with binge eating. She has all sorts of content. She's done her website, her blog, and her podcast. She has a new client who came to her because they were searching on ChatGPT, trying to figure out how to explain binge eating to their partner. Like they struggled with it, but they didn't know how to explain it. Chat GPT actually recommended Jane and her website and her podcast. This new customer went over to listen to her podcast, fell in love with her, then went to the website. By the time she got her on the consult call, she knew what it was going to cost and she was ready to sign. She made $3,500 just because that one person asked ChatGPT, how do I explain this to my partner? And ChatGPT said, Jane can help you with that.

Amy Porterfield (7:27)

Okay, so we want to know how Jane got there. So let's talk about that. When someone asked ChatGPT or Claude for a recommendation or, or just like you, they're searching for something, how are businesses actually getting named in there? Like, what makes AI choose you over someone else? And how does AI even know you in that sense?

Rachel Linteigan (7:50)

Absolutely. And perfect question, because that's what everybody wants to know. I teach this every day. And that is the question. So what it amounts to is we do several things we make sure that we understand. And this is where your SEO strategy comes to play. Play. We understand what people are searching for. So you have to learn how to find not only what keywords are they searching, but now how to really understand your ideal customer the best you possibly can. So you can anticipate what questions they're asking or start using some of the new tools that we're getting that actually show us what prompts people are asking in the AI based search and creating that content on your website, ideally your website also you can cover it on your podcast, especially if your podcast is optimized, because Chat, GPT and Perplexity and Claude, all of them know about podcasts too. You're creating that content and then you're optimizing it to make it easier for the search engines to understand it. But it is, at least in my world, content strategy first is the approach that I take for SEO. And that's what we took in the corporate world as well.

Amy Porterfield (9:00)

Okay, so don't let me forget to ask you about when you said and then we optimize it. I want to know what that means. But before we even optimize it, how do you know what the keywords are? How do you know what to actually be creating content about? So that you're found in the AI SEO.

Rachel Linteigan (9:18)

Yeah, absolutely. So there are tools that we can use. Part of it is just really, really understanding. And I know you teach this like you understand your ideal customer.

Amy Porterfield (9:28)

Yes.

Rachel Linteigan (9:28)

The best you possibly can do those interviews, like talk to them, get their words and really, truly understand what are the questions that come up again and again and again? Because those questions that you get asked are perfect to put on your website or to cover on your, your podcast or your blog. We can also look at Google suggested search. What are people searching for on Google? What are they interested in? You can use tools to find and understand. There's so many different things that we can do now to really understand what people are interested in. I use a ton of customer data. I've had over 10,000 people come through my free, like my introductory training class. So I asked them in the chat and the polls and all the kind of information you could possibly want, and I create content based on that.

Amy Porterfield (10:18)

Oh, so good. Yes. Okay, so then when you figure that out, what does it mean to optimize it?

Rachel Linteigan (10:25)

Yeah, Perfect question, perfect segue. So when we do it, we look at keyword ideas, and we start by looking at what is the search demand? What are people interested in? Are they asking these questions? A lot of the keywords we see in Google are actually questions. Like, if you really know how to do keyword research, you'll find questions there all the time. So the first step is to figure out what are people searching for so you can create content on it. Then you want to see, what can my website potentially rank for? This is for Google. What can my website potentially rank for? What keywords should I use? And you're going to use those keywords in all the places Google is going to look for information on that page. So things like your title tag, your meta description, your image file name, your copy, your header tags. I know a few of those may have felt just slightly technical, but I promise they're not. And, like, you can adjust them really easily. Especially if you're on WordPress, you're just using the Yoast plugin. Squarespace has it automatically. Like, it's not hard, but you're going to use it in the places Google's going to look. Because each time Google sees the same keyword in one of those elements, it's like a little check mark. And Google says, this is what this page is about. Oh, this makes sense. Now then, with AI, we're just honestly making sure that we have the answers to the question that AI is expecting or what people are searching for in there. Because the way AI works, it doesn't care about your keywords. It cares about the answer to the right question.

Amy Porterfield (11:56)

Okay, that's what I was going to ask. I was going to say, how is this different than just learning SEO? And so drill down a little bit into. Because if someone hasn't really taken on SEO in their business, and so now they're like, okay, I don't even. I've never even paid attention to SEO, but I really want to get mentioned in these AI searches or conversations. So what are. Are they starting from scratch? What are they doing differently? What do they do?

Rachel Linteigan (12:25)

So if somebody's brand new and they've not done anything, then what we want to do is make sure we get them found for their brand name. So they want to do SEO, especially on their homepage, using their brand as their keyword. That way, when people are searching for their business, they show up at the top of the page above, like their Facebook profile, their LinkedIn, their social media. Because very often, especially newer entrepreneurs don't show up right at the top. So that's the very first thing, because people are. People know you, they're looking for you. We need to make sure you're at the top. So if you're brand new, that's where you start. If you've been doing it a little while you have a blog, you're trying to create content. That's where you can start looking at. Excellent. Expanding your reach through what we call non brand, which is what we've been talking about, creating that content so that people who don't know you but are looking for something in your niche can find you by creating that content and then doing the things that we do for traditional and AI optimization, really, the SEO, those tactics, they're what goes at the end. It's the. The overall strategy of what am I even covering that most people don't realize is actually what SEO is.

Amy Porterfield (13:44)

Okay. And I love that you're saying that podcasts count. Like what you're doing in your podcast count. Do you have to have a transcript of your podcast on your website for it to work?

Rachel Linteigan (13:56)

I don't put one on most of my podcast blog posts, so I don't do a traditional show notes, pictures page.

Amy Porterfield (14:02)

Great.

Rachel Linteigan (14:02)

But I do do a blog post first, and then I use that as my outline for the podcast.

Amy Porterfield (14:09)

Okay.

Rachel Linteigan (14:09)

And my podcast ranks up there in the top five for online marketing. You and I are on the same little chart, which I love. It's amazing. And I thank you for changing the name of the podcast over the summer, because when you announced that, I decided I was going after online marketing, and it took me less than six months to get to the top of those charts.

Amy Porterfield (14:31)

Fantastic. It's so great. So, okay, now, but you're saying for AI, you want to really start creating content based on what are people asking in AI? That's how you want to be thinking about how you're creating your content. What are people asking related to your industry? So that Jane you mentioned, how do you explain. Explain binge eating to a partner? She might do a whole podcast around that.

Rachel Linteigan (15:04)

And that's exactly what we're looking at. I can give you a couple other examples that might make it easy for people to understand. So I have another student, Lisa. She's a therapist. So Lisa has another example like this, where they started on chat GPT and they went to Google. She has a client who couldn't figure out what type therapy they needed. They knew they needed help, so they went to ChatGPT and kind of asked like, what am I even looking for? This is What I want to work on. They then went to Google and searched for that specific type of therapy in their local area. She's in a suburb of Atlanta. So they searched for that therapy in Atlanta because she had done SEO on her website and she had created a page for that specific type of therapy. They found her, she showed up at the top, they clicked through, they came in, they became a paying client. She's had it happen multiple times. In five months, she's had 81 new client sessions and made $27,000 from just having the right content on her website.

Amy Porterfield (16:07)

Fantastic. How about someone who's like, selling courses or memberships or coaching? How do they do this?

Rachel Linteigan (16:15)

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, thank you for asking that. So that's Patty. I actually met Patty in Momentum several years ago. We're in your world. Yeah. So Patty is a course creator. She is a coach. She has been with me for several years. She is one of my favorite success stories. So she has all sorts. And I can't say exactly what her niche is because she's asked me to never share her super juicy keyword.

Amy Porterfield (16:41)

Okay.

Rachel Linteigan (16:42)

Publicly because it drives so much money for her business and she's afraid her competitors would potentially hear about it.

Amy Porterfield (16:48)

Oh, wow. Okay.

Rachel Linteigan (16:49)

I'll tell you off camera, but she's a coach in an amazing niche. She helps families. She has all sorts of content on her site that is going to specifically help the parents that she helps. Every question they could possibly have. She joined me. She'd been trying to do it on her own a little bit. She kind of some was right, some was wrong. She learned how to do keyword research my way. And she found this new keyword and she calls it Super Juicy Keyword. I'm not allowed to say it publicly and I respect that. So the super juicy keyword, she didn't know it existed. She'd never used it on her site. Amy, she went, she optimized her homepage, she put it on her site. She moved up eight pages on Google in the first week because Google agreed this is a good site. Like, this keyword is perfect for her. Over the course of six months, she moved up to position number one. That keyword is searched over 4,000 times a month. She has earned over $150,000 in additional revenue for this one keyword that ties to her one on one coaching offer. I just talked to her last week. She just wrapped up her last, like, group launch. She told me it was a six figure launch. It was super successful. And she told me she's never live launching again. Because she doesn't need to. She, she doesn't want to do the live launches anymore. And she's got enough coming in on the one on one. She's talking seriously about no longer doing a program that just hit six figure launch now. I'm not, I'm not committing her to that.

Amy Porterfield (18:25)

Yes. Because this is, there's a lot of people listening that don't want to live launch anymore and they either want to go evergreen or change how they're doing it. And you're saying if you really dial this in, people can find you and bring in enough money that you don't have to do your live launching if you don't want to.

Rachel Linteigan (18:44)

You don't have to. She, she messaged me and she's like, I never want to do it that way again. And so we're kind of talking a little bit about what she wants to do, but it's like I never want to live launch again.

Amy Porterfield (18:55)

And I think good for her if that's what she wants to do. Yeah. So at obviously don't tell us the word, but what did she do to find this word? Like what, what does that look like behind the scenes?

Rachel Linteigan (19:07)

So I teach this in my program and I teach the way we do it in corporate. So it's really about using different tools and searching and looking and not only identifying a keyword, but then verifying whether or not your site has a good chance of ranking for it because not everybody will rank for every keyword that is applicable to their niche. I heard it described at one point as you need to think about, does Google think that my site deserves to rank for this keyword? And we build our sites over time. Like your site. You have a very authoritative site. You have a ton of backlinks, you've done all sorts of things. You can rank for most keywords that you would want to go after. However, a brand new entrepreneur has a new site and it's not as authoritative in Google's eyes. So they probably can't rank for the same keyword that you can rank for. So I teach them how to really figure out what is the perfect keyword for your niche based on your website, your competitors websites and the overall opportunity in your niche. So it's, it's pretty intricate but once you understand is so exciting because you can immediately see where there's potential.

Amy Porterfield (20:24)

Yeah, for sure. Now as you were talking I was thinking what are some of the mistakes that you see online business owners making that are keeping them invisible? This is Rachel. This is a Big thing for a lot of my newer students in the sense of like, no one's paying attention, no one's watching, I can't get any visibility. I just was talking to a woman today about this. So what are some of the mistakes they're likely making both on Google and in AI Search?

Rachel Linteigan (20:51)

Yeah, absolutely. Great question. And it's one I see as well, because I've had so many people come through that introductory class. I've had over 10,000. I asked them this question, like, what have you tried? Are you getting traffic? Are you visible? Are you getting leads? I can tell you that the most recent training I did, 85% of the people were not visible and we're not getting any leads or if they got them, they were completely unpredictable. They had no idea. When it boils down to three things, number one, and I know, I know, I know, I know SEO sometimes feels overwhelming, sometimes it feels complicated. Maybe you've heard it's technical. And so they don't mean to, but they let the fear stop them from trying. And I'm not. I don't judge because fear has stopped me from things in my life too do. But they let it stop them from trying because they don't think they can do it. I've heard people say, I don't think it works for my niche. I knew somebody who tried it and it didn't work. So like, that's just number one is they've not done anything. They don't understand that this is what you need to do. Number two is that they've tried to do it on their own and maybe they've had a little success, maybe they haven't. More often than not, they've made mistakes. Like they. They've chosen keywords they won't rank for. Or like Patty's story, she was using keywords, she was getting traffic, but there was this huge, super juicy keyword she didn't even know existed.

Amy Porterfield (22:13)

Yeah.

Rachel Linteigan (22:13)

So she had potential to grow so much by finding the right one. So when you're trying to do it on your own, and you know from teaching courses for years, when you're trying to do it on your own, you don't understand everything. So it just makes it easier to have somebody teach you. The third, and this one breaks my heart, is they hire the wrong person. And so often it's because I don't understand it. I don't know what to do. I just want to be able to check this off my list. And then I hear from them. They're like, I've got Somebody, but I don't know if they're even doing anything. How do I even tell? And one of my favorite clients, I've worked with them since 2018, so we've worked together years and years. When they first came to me, they had been paying a consultant for two years to do their SEO work. And when I finally was able to get into their account to see what was going on, everything was wrong. Traffic was down. And this was long before we had to worry about AI. Google was the king. They didn't have anything going right, and they were paying two full years. And that unfortunately happens. I always tell people, I think it's so important to understand enough of what you're doing before you outsource it so that you can verify you're getting what you pay for. Protect yourself. As an entrepreneur, you work really hard to grow your business. Protect yourself.

Amy Porterfield (23:34)

Yeah, that means definitely with. With really all things. When it comes to ads, when it comes to working with a designer copywriter, I think that's so very smart. Now let's get a little bit practical. So someone's listening right now, and she's thinking, okay, I know I need to do this. And she's probably thinking, I've never done anything with SEO, really, but now with AI, and everybody's going there and asking all the questions, like, there's no way to ignore this anymore. And so I think we all see the value here. So what are like two or three things that she can do this week to start kind of getting a little bit of momentum in this area?

Rachel Linteigan (24:17)

Absolutely. So number one is commit to learning how to do it. Like, just be open to it. See the opportunity that it is. And then let's start by just making sure that if she's never done anything, her homepage probably is not optimized. So let's go ahead and do that. And just to start, just use your brand name, your business name, use that as your keyword. Make sure it's in your title tag and your meta description. Make sure you've used it in the right way in your image file names. Make sure it's in your copy and your header tags. If you service a local market, make sure you're also referencing that local search area because your customers will be searching local. If you don't know what any of these words mean, it's okay. I've got a podcast and a blog post blog with tons and tons of resources that'll walk you through how to get started with this. That's if you're brand new now if you've been trying to do it for a while and you're not sure if it's working, that's where you should kind of take a look and see. Are you picking the right keywords? Are you formatting your SEO elements the right way? Are you creating content that's really helpful? Like, go through and take a look at your last five or ten blog posts. Do they really provide value? Are they long enough that there's information that somebody can actually, actually use and act upon? If it's two or 300 words and there's really no nothing of value, Google and AI are not going to want to show it to anybody either. What we're finding in the research studies is that longer content tends to perform better. So a thousand words, fifteen hundred words, you don't need three to five thousand words. Like nobody's going to read that anyway. But that thousand to fifteen hundred tends to be kind of the sweet spot for ranking, visibility, traffic, all of that. So kind of of take a look at what you've been doing. If you're not sure if you're choosing the right keywords, one of the best things you can do is go to Google and open an Incognito browser window. This is really important. Your core traditional Chrome tab will not work for this. So go to Chrome top right, where you'll see those little buttons. Click there, where there's the three dots. Click there. Open the Incognito browser window. Now go in and, and type the keyword that you are wanting to rank for, the phrase that you're wanting to rank for, and see if you show up first. Second, what type sites are showing up. Are they really similar to you? Are they people you're familiar with? Or are they like the big brands that I worked with at the agency? Because if it's the big guys that I worked with at the agency, nothing you do is going to make you rank for that keyword because it's just not going to work. So if it's somebody where, like they have locations in the malls, they have 3, 4, 500 stores across the country, look for a different keyword, my friend. You're not going to rank for that one. It's just going to be too competitive. So that's a couple things she can do, depending on where she is in her journey, to start figuring out great tips.

Amy Porterfield (27:16)

I love that. And I was thinking, you know, what's the pep talk you give her if she's like, this is too technical, this feels like. Sometimes it feels like math too. Me and anything that feels like math, I'm not going to do. So, like, even if, if, if I were taking this on, what's the pep talk you give someone like me that's like, I don't know, this feels really heavy or maybe I should just hire it out? What would you say?

Rachel Linteigan (27:40)

I would say, I know it can feel scary. I know it can feel overwhelming, it can feel technical, it can feel like it's beyond what you're capable of. But what I want you to understand is it's nowhere near as technical today as it used to be. I do this. I love it. I do not have a background in tech. I am. I have a degree in journalism. I have an MBA in marketing. So I don't code. I know enough HTML to break a website. I'm not allowed to change my site like my husband does mine. I am not allowed to touch it. I want to share that I understand especially how hard it can be or how hard it can feel. So when all of this came out about AI based search, we were referring to it as LLM. So Large Language model, because that's technically what they are. The first trainings that I went to for them were from guys within my industry who were very technical, who were really excited. Amy. They were reading the patents for how these things work.

Amy Porterfield (28:50)

Oh, geez.

Rachel Linteigan (28:51)

In the sessions, okay, that is not me. I am a journalist. I am all about the content strategy. My initial reaction was, nope, I'm not doing this. I have been doing SEO. I've been in marketing 25 years. I've been doing SEO since 2008. I do content strategy. I am not doing this. And then that's what I think. I share that because I have a feeling a lot of your audience can relate. But then I realized I needed to do this to stay relevant and I needed to do this to be visible and I needed to do this. So I had to figure it out. So I started figuring it out. And then I quickly realized it actually wasn't as scary as it seemed. It just was that those guys, they don't know how to talk to real people. And I see that, like, with love because I had guys like that on my team at the agency and they were not allowed to talk to clients science without me on there to translate. So if you don't understand it, you probably just have had the wrong teacher. And you need to look for somebody who takes a different approach and is maybe a little bit less technical and a little bit more like you and it'll make a big difference.

Amy Porterfield (30:00)

I Think so. I think finding the right person to really explain it in a way that doesn't feel so intimidating makes so much difference. So. And I know you're a really great resource for that. So first of all, thank you so much for the knowledge and the insight and tell people where they can find out more about you and learn from you.

Rachel Linteigan (30:18)

Well, thank you so much, Amy. I appreciate that. My website is Etched marketing. Com. You will find all sorts of blog posts, everything you could ever need help with there. There's also freebies, whatever you need. I also have a podcast called Marketing for Entrepreneurs which is available on every podcast player as well. It covers SEO marketing, everything you need to learn how to really help grow your business using organic search and really boosting your visibility.

Amy Porterfield (30:49)

Wonderful. Thank you so much. And we'll put that in the show notes as well. Rachel, I really appreciate you coming on and helping us understand this. I think it's a very important time to take advantage of this and so you make it easier for sure.

Rachel Linteigan (31:01)

Thank you so much. That's always my goal, is to make it feel exciting and like something you could actually do for your business.

Amy Porterfield (31:08)

Well, I think we've accomplished that, so thanks again.

Rachel Linteigan (31:11)

Thank you.

Amy Porterfield (31:13)

I hope that SEO and the way you're looking at SEO in an AI world now feels a little bit more doable. If you've been putting SEO off, don't feel bad. A lot of people do. But where we are in the world today and how we're using AI, it's even more, more important that you start to pay attention. And if SEO or AI search wasn't even on your radar, well, now it is. The people who pay attention to this now are getting to have the real advantage. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And if you're listening in your podcast app, just hit follow so new episodes show up automatically. I'll see you next week.